Hello everyone, I am working on a project to build a connected house. I have two goals: controlling my house through voice (I have some Philips Hue lights, for example) and listening to music. For the moment I just did some search related to Google but if you have recommandation it will be very appreciated !

For Google I am strugc Audio and the Home s supported on the Nest conversation will com the Nest Audio does n problem, as I am just the audio quality of the given that technical reviews suggest the Nest Audio is better?

Bought a new fridge recently and first week no matter what we did it was too hard when scooping ice cream we bumped the degrees up one degree twice. Then our ice cream was like melted as scooped it out too soft. We left the 48 return window for appliances. Bought a govee temperature sensor and now we need to know what looks normal so we know if we need to return a fridge again because we are still getting constant fluctuation though not as big. I did put one in our outdoor freezer and it stayed within a degree the whole time so the 5+ without us opening anything is concerning. But maybe I need more data? Please help.

Hey,
our Kasa Thermostats are all working fine in the whole house without adapter. Only in the living room the pin is too short to fully close the valve so it stays on even in summer mode.

The adapter which comes with it does not fit and is a tiny bit to small (the one with 2 screws at both sides). I tried to put some small piece of the pin just inside. It is partially working (valve is now closed) but its sending me an error.

What do you recommend here?

Best regards!

My aunt was visiting for a few days and ended up getting to my place way earlier than expected. I was at work, couldnt leave right away and she had to sit outside with her luggage until i could get home. Felt pretty bad about the whole thing, especially since she called me like 4 times asking how much longer id be 😭

Now im thinking about getting a smart lock so i can let family in from my phone when something like this happens again. id still want a regular key as backup because i dont trust myself to remember to charge or change batteries. The whole point is avoiding another situation where someone has to wait outside for me.

For those who have smart locks, has the remote unlock ever failed when you needed it? thats the one thing holding me back from getting one.

Like many of us im sure, this started with a small fix to replace the drive belt on this old gate motor. Next thing you know im installing a wifi controller, connecting it to my ring cameras, auto closing based off my phone location, and auto open/close for door dashers. Yes it was vibe coded but i am software engineer. Full details on how I did it here https://danielyaa5.github.io/gate-opener-widget/

Just finished setting up our first proper connected living room and wanted to share where it landed. Nothing enthusiast-grade, more just whatever we could get to talk to each other without buying a whole hub ecosystem.

Google Nest Mini in the living room as the main voice point. Two Mi smart bulbs in the hallway, Xiaomi video doorbell, and the Comfee Gusto in the bedroom. The bulbs and doorbell live in Mi Home. The AC uses the SmartHome app which linked to Google Home on the second attempt, so now voice control for temperature and on/off works through Nest Mini. Cloud-to-cloud, latency around two seconds, reliable.

The thing that actually surprised me is how useful the AC schedule is once I set it up properly in the SmartHome app and left it. Comes on 20 minutes before I usually get home from the office, room is already cool. Doorbell notification goes straight to Google Home too so I can hear who's at the door from the kitchen.

Still three apps on the home screen. Mi Home has those main page banners I keep meaning to disable. I've thought about a Tapo IR hub to pull things into Matter but honestly the setup works, and adding another box feels like solving a problem I don't have yet.

Thinking about adding a motion sensor next so the hallway lights don't need manual commands when my hands are full.

I made this to control my smart home from a small 3D model of my flat, and thought some of you might like it. Here’s what it does:

• Build your home in 3D in the browser. Trace rooms on a grid and drop furniture from a catalog, with a live 3D preview.
• Objects bound to real devices. Clicking a lamp toggles the real light. Lamps light the room and cast shadows, and the sun moves with the time of day.
• Auto-generated widgets. A side panel with a widget for each device, grouped by room.

Free, open source, installs through HACS: https://github.com/CarlesRojas/ha-diorama

Feedback welcome!

Just bought a ring doorbell. I have an android phone and lots of Google home speakers. Is there still no way to make Google home chime when the doorbell is pressed. Seems we should have some workaround, hopefully

Hey All,

First Zooz device here and I've got a ticket open with their support but I'm trying to see if there is something wrong with my unit or if there's a firmware bug.

After powering the device on/plugging it in toggling the master/endpoint 0 entry does physically turn both outlets on/off and their status for the sub nodes (endpoints 1 and 2) change to match.

However as soon as you control either endpoint 1 or 2 directly the master toggle will still physically turn them on and off, but the status no longer matches reality on the sub entries, until you power cycle the unit.

Anyone else seeing this behavior?

I used to run nest protect. After it got discontinued, I swapped in a set of x-sense smart smoke and CO alarms, and they got put to work pretty quick.

Last week, I was out of state for work when my phone lit up with a push notification that an alarm was sounding. The app showed which unit. Nobody was home, and I was hundreds of miles away, so before that, I'd have just sat there stressing.

But now I have an optional fire dispatch add on. After the alert, I asked my neighbor to check the place. He confirmed something had been smoking in the house, then I just needed to confirm the fire in the app. Not long after, the monitoring side called and sent a truck. I feel lucky that I have this setting rather than just hoping a neighbor noticed.

Hey! I have ASD but am v good at masking. Recently I realised I was really overwhelmed and I want to work to make my life easier. I love systems for efficiency or making lil changes, but i am new here and feel there’s things I am not thinking of.

If anyone has any suggestions for someone who wants to start implying more things like this in their house of what worked for them or etc etc.

I maintain **Orphan Entity Cleaner**, a custom integration (HACS Default) that finds entities left in the registry after an integration was removed, and lets you delete them from a sidebar panel.

The most common complaint with tools like this is that they flag entities that are only temporarily unavailable. 4.2 tries to fix that by putting every candidate into one of three categories:

- **Safe** - nothing provides it any more. Only these are selected or deleted automatically.

- **To review** - integration disabled, failing or retrying.

- **Only unavailable** - device just off for a while.

It also uses HA's own "no longer provided" signal (`restored: true`), shows a **"used by N"** badge for entities still referenced in automations, scripts or scenes, can remove **orphan devices**, and waits 10 minutes after start-up before reporting anything. There's a dry run and a JSON backup before deleting.

GitHub: https://github.com/Franz646/orphan-cleaner

Happy to hear what it gets wrong on your setup.

I am looking for an outswing automated door opener that meets the following criteria:

• Activates with a fob or button.
• Allows people to open the door even without the fob (manually by pulling)
• Has hardware that will not be visible on the outside of the door.
• Ideally under $200 and available in the U.S.A. Used would be fine as this is for a home project.

I don't have wiring running to the location but could figure something out, though ideally no major wiring requirements. The door is light and mostly hollow core, so it doesn't need much power behind it.

I am setting up motion-activated lighting in two rooms and want to run my plan by this sub to see if I am missing better options, especially since my house runs on Google Home.

For the utility room, I am planning on a flush-mounted WiZ SuperSlim ceiling light paired with a WiZ battery motion sensor. Mostly because gemini offered it as an alternative to Philips.

I want it to trigger at a low brightness when I walk in, and have an option for high brightness for normal utility room business.

For the hallway, I want to keep my existing pendants, so I am looking at standard smart bulbs paired with a separate smart motion sensor linked through Google Home routines. My main concern is latency - how noticeable is the delay between detecting motion and the bulbs actually firing?

Any alternative hardware recommendations would be hugely appreciated